We a good story
Quick delivery in the UK

Biographies

A good biography invites you into someone else’s life. It takes you on fascinating journeys through the ups and downs of the life of legendary film stars, talented musicians, inspiring athletes, visionary politicians and many more. A good biography lets you get under the skin of your biggest idols, and you feel collected when reading their story - maybe even in the form of their own words. You will find both biographies and autobiographies in Tales’ selection, in addition to diaries and memoirs. So are you ready to be inspired by some of the world’'s most extraordinary individuals?
Show more
Filter
Filter
Sort bySort Popular
  • Save 17%
    - A Memoir of Race, Identity, Breakdown and Recovery
    by David Harewood
    £9.99 - 15.49

    A groundbreaking account of the effects of everyday racism on the identity and mental health of black British men, explored through the lens of Homeland and Supergirl actor David Harewood's personal experience.

  • Save 14%
    - A Forensic Pathologist's Journey Through Life
    by Dr Richard Shepherd
    £9.49 - 17.49

  • Save 20%
    - Making it to Parenthood the (Very) Long Way Round
    by Sophie Beresiner
    £11.99

    Brave, funny and honest, columnist Sophie Beresiner takes us on her complex journey to parenthood and shows us that there's more than one way to become a mother.

  • - Confessions of a Prison Bitch
    by Henry Bellows
    £12.49

  • Save 36%
    by Henry F Arnold
    £13.49

  • - A Jewish Youth in the Soviet Partisans and His Unlikely Life in California
    by Joseph Pell & Fred Rosenbaum
    £12.49

  • - Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent
    by Iris Chen
    £12.99

    Peaceful parenting is hard enough for the average parent. Imagine trying to do it when you have the instincts of a tiger mother.  In Untigering, Iris Chen shares her journey of leaving behind authoritarian tiger parenting to embrace a respectful, relational way of raising children. As a Chinese American mom, she draws from her experiences of living in both North America and Asia and offers insights and practices to: Heal from your childhood wounds Change your beliefs about yourself and your children Parent through connection instead of control Redefine your understanding of success Navigate and challenge cultural norms Iris calls for a radical shift from parenting that is rooted in power to one that is grounded in partnership, but she does so with humor, humility, and empathy. This book is her invitation to you to begin your own journey of transformation as a parent.

  • Save 14%
    - Resistance, Deception and Betrayal in Occupied France
    by Patrick Marnham
    £9.49

    Courage and betrayal in Occupied France, involving SOE, British Intelligence, the Gestapo and the French Resistance

  • Save 10%
    - The Intimate World of the Windsor Sisters
    by Andrew Morton
    £8.99 - 15.49

  • Save 15%
    - A Life
    by Harry Martin
    £14.49

    This is the extraordinary life story of Ernie O'Malley (1897-1957), one of Ireland's most complex and influential Republican figures, and later a hugely successful writer.

  • Save 11%
    by John Moorwood
    £7.99

    Part homage to angling and part coming-of-age story, The Magic of Fishing is a charming celebration of a personal passion and one of the UK's most popular pastimes.

  • Save 20%
    by Iain Dale
    £11.99 - 18.99

    Essays on all 46 American Presidents who have held the office over the last 230 years - from George Washington to Joe Biden.

  • Save 20%
    - Organising, Crafting & Creating Happiness in a Messy World
    by Stacey Solomon
    £11.99

    It's a chance for me to forget about the things going on in the world around me for a minute. I hope this book helps you to lose yourself for a moment, too - and that you enjoy reading it and even, maybe, having a go at some of the bits inside. Lots of Love, to the moon and backStacey x

  • by Celia Ryker
    £16.49 - 25.99

  • by Mary Seacole
    £4.49

    HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.

  • Save 11%
    - Audrey Hepburn and World War II
    by Robert Matzen
    £7.99

    The riveting, untold story of Audrey Hepburn under fire in World War II. According to her son, 'The war made my mother who she was.' Participating in the Dutch Resistance, Hepburn experienced the 'Bridge Too Far' battle of Arnhem, the brutal execution of her uncle, and the ordeal of the Hunger Winter of 1944.

  • Save 14%
    by Paris Lees
    £9.49

  • - A Woman's Sexual Odyssey Guided by Mary Magdalene (Book Two of The Magdalene Teachings)
    by Mercedes Kirkel
    £18.99

    In this best-selling book, Mary Magdalene takes us on a profound journey into the world of sacred sexuality, guiding us through the sexual practices known to priestesses in the temple of Isis. SUBLIME UNION presents Mary's full instruction, interwoven with Kirkel's stirring story of applying the teachings with her partner. A sacred sexuality manual and erotic memoir, with 23 tasteful illustrations.Building on the messages in MARY MAGDALENE BECKONS (Book I of the Magdalene Teachings), readers are now given another piece to completing our spiritual work at the third dimension. Mary's path of sacred sexuality is fully explained, with compassionate and insightful guidance. SUBLIME UNION gives us a profound and vulnerable map to engaging intimacy as a spiritual path. "e;SUBLIME UNION is the book we've all been waiting for. I highly recommend this thrilling read."e; --Christiane Northrup, MD, bestselling author "e;Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom"e; . . . "e;Mercedes Kirkel is one of the clearest channels of Mary Magdalene known to humankind. SUBLIME UNION is an extraordinary and thorough work."e; --Michael Mirdad, author "e;An Introduction to Tantra and Sacred Sexuality"e; and "e;Creating Fulfilling Relationships"e; "e;Beautifully written and juicy, to put it mildly, SUBLIME UNION is a landmark book--a poignant, courageously vulnerable love story and finely illustrated manual for sexual practice in the realms of communication, energy exchange, and more. I recommend this book highly!"e; --Saniel Bonder, author "e;Healing the Spirit/Matter Split"e; and "e;While Jesus Weeps"e; "e;Awakened sexuality is an opening to the Divine. I applaud Kirkel's courage for sharing her sacred sex life with the world in order to teach this, so people will have an opportunity to have a much more fulfilling and spiritual relationship."e; -- Joanna Prentis, coauthor "e;Power of the Magdalene"e; and "e;The Magdalene Version"e; "e;A multifaceted jewel of a book that shimmers with light and love. Candid and intriguing personal transformation is delicately interwoven with profound wisdom and amplified by valuable energy-raising practices. Compelling and convincing."e; -- Diana Richardson, author "e;The Heart of Tantric Sex"e; and "e;Slow Sex "e;Passionate, powerful, and, best of all, extremely practical, SUBLIME UNION can help couples open to the sacredness of sex and love, and heal their bodies, minds, and souls."e; -- Stephanie Riseley, author "e;Love From Both Sides"e; "e;For those who choose sacred sexuality as a path to touch enlightenment and embrace sublime union, Mary Magdalene and Mercedes Kirkel offer clear and timely guidance pointing the way."e; -- Claire Heartsong, author "e;Anna, Grandmother of Jesus"e; and "e;Anna, The Voice of the Magdalenes"e; "e;These teachings bring illumination to the sacredness of sex for all of us--integrating passion, pleasure, and love in a sacred way."e; -- Diane Riley, coauthor "e;Tantric Secrets for Men,"e; author "e;Sexy and Sacred"e; http://www.sublime-union.com/https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3&v=ANlicS24rWU

  • - The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys
    by Lol Tolhurst
    £22.49

    A deeply moving and engaging memoir by Laurence "e;Lol"e; Tolhurst, cofounder of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees The CureAs two of the first punks in a provincial English town, Lol Tolhurst and Robert Smith didn't have it easy. Outsiders from the start, theirs was a friendship based initially on proximity and a shared love of music. They began playing together in pubs and soon developed their own unique style and approach to songwriting, resulting in timeless songs that sparked a deep sense of identification and empathy in listeners and spawning a new subculture dubbed "e;Goth"e; by the press. But there was also a dark side to The Cure's intense and bewildering success. Tolhurst was nursing a growing alcoholism that would destroy his place in The Cure and nearly end his life.Intensely lyrical and evocative, gripping and unforgettable, this is the definitive story of a singular band whose legacy endures many decades hence, told from the point of view of a participant and eyewitness who was there when it happened--and even before it all began.

  • - A Midlife Memoir of Travel and the National Parks
    by Tw Neal
    £14.49

    Fans of Cheryl Strayed's Wild, Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love will enjoy author Toby Neal's road trip travel memoir of self-discovery as she and her husband journey through the national parks.I had a dream to live a "normal" life, and I attained it; but along the way, I lost myself.My story began in Freckled: a Memoir of Growing up Wild in Hawaii, but it continued after I married the man of my dreams, completed my education with multiple degrees, had a successful career, and raised two beautiful children. I sacrificed to get to where I was. Though I didn't regret anything, flat on my back in the doctor's office on the cusp of my fiftieth birthday, my health was crumbling. I no longer recognized myself.I turned my head and saw a calendar on the wall: Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah beckoned me with its mysterious sandstone hoodoos.A road trip traveling through the national parks was just what I needed to rediscover the girl I'd been. It could help me turn a corner into my new career as a writer, and my husband would enjoy a chance to photograph the natural wonders we saw.Sometimes, a twelve-thousand-mile road trip is also a personal quest. An absorbing travel narrative about defining and facing the limitations and opportunities of midlife. KIRKUS

  • by G K Author Chesterton
    £20.49

  • Save 23%
    - How Bjorn Borg Conquered Wimbledon
    by Graham Denton
    £15.49

    In 1976, a young Swede named Bjorn Borg put a stranglehold on the Wimbledon men's singles title that proved unbreakable for the next five years. No one in the game's modern era had ever pulled it off and only one, Roger Federer, has subsequently matched it. The Golden Boy of Centre Court tells the story of that phenomenal sporting achievement.

  • Save 27%
    by Patrick Hourcade
    £21.99

    Step inside the private realm of the great designer Karl Lagerfeld through the eyes of his fellow artist and close friend Patrick Hourcade.The artist Patrick Hourcade met Karl Lagerfeld in 1976. A friendship that will last more than twenty years is immediately born between the two men, strengthened by their shared passion for eighteenth-century arts. After studying art history, Patrick Hourcade begins working with the creative team at Vogue Paris, while at the same time introducing Karl to his beloved specialty, the arts of the Enlightenment. From then on, he would accompany the great fashion designer on all of his lavish acquisitions--mansions, decors, and works of art. The two would build a magnificent universe together, refined and sometimes overly extravagant, especially at the Grand-Champ chateau in Brittany, the Hotel Pozzo di Borgo in Paris, or at La Vigie, a villa on the French Riviera.Patrick Hourcade tells the story of this aesthetic connection, through previously unpublished documents and a unique biography of Karl Lagerfeld, where he is seen in all of his splendor as well as his weaknesses. This intimate story also crosses paths with the colorful characters who populated the life of the great designer, including Anna Piaggi and Francine Crescent, Laure de Beauvau and Liliane de Rothschild, Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent, Gilles Defour, Vincent Darré, Guy Bourdin, and Andrée Putnam, and, most importantly, his mother Elisabeth and Jacques de Bascher--his two loves of his life.

  • Save 23%
    by Fiaz Rafiq
    £15.49

    When it comes to sports and entertainment, the glitz and the glamour of celebrity life, most of us only aspire to gain something small such as an autograph. Few of us ever have the chance to sit down with stars and discuss their lives, or rub shoulders with those closest to them. Being up close and personal with UFC, boxing and entertainment stars is just part of Fiaz Rafiq's daily routine. He's worked closely with some of the most revered champions and pioneers of UFC. In this gripping memoir he shares riveting behind-the-scenes stories of the top MMA and boxing champions and legends - from Randy Couture, Royce Gracie, Brock Lesnar, Daniel Cormier and Conor McGregor to Muhammad Ali and Bruce Lee (to many the Godfather of MMA) - their gritty beginnings and their most triumphant moments. The result is the culmination of over two decades of work, gaining the trust and confidence of the greatest fighters and personalities in MMA and combat sports. To the Top is a fascinating odyssey that uncovers the hidden history of the most brutal combat sport on the planet.

  • - A Life from Beginning to End
    by Hourly History
    £11.49

  • Save 21%
    - how the KGB cultivated Donald Trump and related tales of sex, greed, power, and treachery
    by Craig Unger
    £14.99

    THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. American Kompromat unravels the Russian-influenced operations that amassed the dirty little secrets of the richest and most powerful men on earth. American Kompromat is based on extended and exclusive interviews with high-level sources in the KGB, CIA, and FBI, as well as lawyers at white-shoe Washington firms, associates of Jeffrey Epstein, and thousands of pages of FBI reports, police investigations, and news articles in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. A narrative offering jaw-dropping context, and set in Upper East Side mansions and private Caribbean islands, gigantic yachts, and private jets, American Kompromat shows that, from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, Russian operations transformed the darkest secrets of the most powerful people in the world into potent weapons that served its interests. Among its many revelations, American Kompromat addresses what may be the single most important unanswered question of the entire Trump era - and one that Unger argues is even more important now that Trump is out of office: Was Donald Trump a Russian asset? Just how compromised was he? And how could such an audacious feat have been accomplished? To answer these questions and more, Craig Unger reports, is to understand kompromat - operations that amassed compromising information on the richest and most powerful men on earth, and that leveraged power by appealing to what is, for some, the most prized possession of all: their vanity. This is a story that transcends the end of the Trump administration, illuminating a major underreported aspect of Trump's corruption that has profoundly damaged American democracy.

  • by David Bentley Hart
    £24.49 - 34.99

  • Save 13%
    - A Memoir
    by Peter Frampton & Alan Light
    £12.99

    A revelatory memoir by rock icon and legendary guitarist Peter Frampton.

  • Save 14%
    - The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane
    by Samanth (Author) Subramanian
    £9.49 - 15.49

    The bold and brilliant biography of maverick British scientist J.B.S. Haldane, one of the twentieth-century's greatest thinkers, by an award-winning author.

  • by Peter Boardman
    £9.49

    'It's a preposterous plan. Still, if you do get up it, I think it'll be the hardest thing that's been done in the Himalayas.' So spoke Chris Bonington when Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker presented him with their plan to tackle the unclimbed West Wall of Changabang - the Shining Mountain - in 1976. Bonington's was one of the more positive responses; most felt the climb impossibly hard, especially for a two-man, lightweight expedition. This was, after all, perhaps the most fearsome and technically challenging granite wall in the Garhwal Himalaya and an ascent - particularly one in a lightweight style - would be more significant than anything done on Everest at the time. The idea had been Joe Tasker's. He had photographed the sheer, shining, white granite sweep of Changabang's West Wall on a previous expedition and asked Pete to return with him the following year. Tasker contributes a second voice throughout Boardman's story, which starts with acclimatisation, sleeping in a Salford frozen food store, and progresses through three nights of hell, marooned in hammocks during a storm, to moments of exultation at the variety and intricacy of the superb, if punishingly difficult, climbing. It is a story of how climbing a mountain can become an all-consuming goal, of the tensions inevitable in forty days of isolation on a two-man expedition; as well as a record of the moment of joy upon reaching the summit ridge against all odds. First published in 1978, The Shining Mountain is Peter Boardman's first book. It is a very personal and honest story that is also amusing, lucidly descriptive, very exciting, and never anything but immensely readable. It was awarded the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize for literature in 1979, winning wide acclaim. His second book, Sacred Summits, was published shortly after his death in 1982. Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker died on Everest in 1982, whilst attempting a new and unclimbed line. Both men were superb mountaineers and talented writers. Their literary legacy lives on through the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, established by family and friends in 1983 and presented annually to the author or co-authors of an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature. For more information about the Boardman Tasker Prize, visit: www.boardmantasker.com

Biographies
Biographies books are per definition a collection of someone’s life. That someone is mostly a celebrity and often comes from the world of entertainment for example a famous movie or television star. A good biography lets you under the skin of the subject. Biographies are mostly written by biography authors, who are specialized in capturing the life of another person through research and multiple interviews with both the individual and his or her relatives. The celebrity or icon can also choose to write his or her own story, which is what characterizes an autobiography. An autobiography can - if the writer is good - give you a more intimate picture of the subject. You can both find biographies and autobiographies in Tales’ wide selection of Biographies. 

Biographies best sellers
Tales’ selection contains most of the biographies best sellers. The biographies books are often about celebrities known from film, television or the music industry, but they can also be about inspiring trailblazers from the societal or political world like the biography best seller Becoming about Michelle Obama. The American first lady has inspired many Americans and people around the world. Her and her husband - the first black American first lady and President - made many extraordinary changes in the American society and advocated for more diversity and respect in the American people. Michelle Obama also fights for more equality, especially when it comes to girls and women. Read the inspiring story of how Michelle Obama became one of our times most popular, kind and obliging residents of the White House in her biography Becoming, and let it guide you to finding our own voice. 
Another best seller is Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. Taddeo has written an innovative biography that is a collection of three American women's lives. The biography is an investigation of the female lust in all its complexity. Many women have expressed that they can reflect their own life and feelings of desire in the book. 

Biographies about musicians
Take a look in our selection and find some of the best biographies about musicians. The selection has something for every taste, because you find accounts about musicians from every end of the spectre. Whether you like rock, jazz, classical music, pop or musicals you will find biographies about musicians representing every genre. 
Take for example the autobiography Me Elton John, who has gained extraordinary reviews and success all around the world making the Elton John biography an international best seller. The book is the only official biography made about the iconic musician and singer. Read the incredible and turbulent story about one of our biggest stars to date, and you might learn the secrets behind writing and performing hit after hit.
You can also dive into the fascinating story of the musical legend Julie Andrews. In the biography Home you can read about her journey from London to Broadway stardom. The triple threat is the woman behind legendary roles such as Mary Poppins and Maria from The Sound of Music, and you can follow her journey through Hollywood in the sequel Home Work. Julie Andrews is the writer of her own story and she writes in an intimate and heart-warming narrative. 

Biographies about artists
Are you an art lover, art student or an artist yourself? Then we would recommend you to find inspiration in our biographies about artists. Our collection of biographies contains among others the book Frida Kahlo - A Biography written by Claudia Schaefer. Schaefer gives an introduction to the beloved Latino artist. Frida Kahlo is one of modern times greatest female artists and her surrealist artworks are extraordinary. The biography introduces the reader to her unique form of art - Kahlo did not see herself as a surrealist - but it also gives a look into the artist behind the world famous works of art. If you want to dive into the lives of amazing artists, the story of Kahlo is just one of many wonderful biographies about artists. 

Join thousands of book lovers

Sign up to our newsletter and receive discounts and inspiration for your next reading experience.